<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The Decision by Foolsparsley (Freckleberg)</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26087986">The Decision</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Freckleberg/pseuds/Foolsparsley'>Foolsparsley (Freckleberg)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Because Destiny and Fate Are All Very Tragic and Romantic, Because I Love Geralt and Yen So Much But They Make Me So Sad, Destiny, F/M, Fate, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Free Will</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 03:54:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,232</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26087986</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Freckleberg/pseuds/Foolsparsley</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>If he had known, in that moment, everything that would befall them both - would he still have made the wish? Destiny pulls Geralt from space and time to give him an opportunity to choose.</p><p>--------</p><p>An angsty, melodramatic ficlet, because there is nothing so angsty as Geralt and Yennefer. </p><p>Contains a small number of vague metaphorical allusions to the books, but no spoilers if you've only seen the TV series.</p><p>For the theme: "Beginnings"</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Yenralt Week</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Decision</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>What if destiny gave you a choice? If you were shown the outcome - however long and torrid and twisting - of a fateful decision. If you could watch one choice as it spills out into eternity. What if you saw - if you felt -</em> <em> all the pain and the heartache that would follow. What if fate showed this to you, and asked you to choose? Would you make the same decision, or save yourself the pain and walk away?</em></p><p> </p><p></p><div>
  <p>Geralt's head was swimming, his body burning all over, bile churning in his belly threatening to come out. He opened his eyes, but everything was black. He struggled to stand, but he couldn't find the floor. He pressed against nothingness; he was <em>in</em> nothingness; suspended outside of space and time. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Don't be afraid," a voice said from behind him. He turned towards the voice, already knowing who he would see: the sorceress, Yennefer of Vengerberg. Shining white stars appeared in the blackness around them as if called into existence by her presence. Such was her power, even the stars were attracted to her and would come out to illuminate her. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>He remembered now - her skin, glowing gold in the afternoon light, warm beneath his fingertips; her eyes, milky purple like summer violets, sparkling up at him, drawing him in; her lips, soft and wet with lipstick; that scent, lilac and gooseberries. The last thing he remembered was the house in Rinde and being put under her spell.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"You're unconscious," she said, calmly. She had moved closer to him, though he had not seen her walk. She appeared directly in front of him now, looking up at him with those violet eyes. He found himself transfixed by her, as he had when he had first seen her just hours before. Something about her drew him in: like a sailor to a siren; a moth to an open flame. "You're about to wake," Yennefer explained, "and shortly thereafter you're going to make a decision. Do you see it?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Yes," he said. He <em>could</em> see it, somehow. He saw her calling on the djinn, saw its power, saw her fate. He felt himself make the wish, the words tumbling over his lips, binding their fates together. A rash and reckless wish perhaps, for a sorceress he barely knew, but in that moment, he saw her, <em>knew</em> her, and he could not pull away; he could only pull himself deeper towards her.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He saw and <em>felt</em> all this in an instant - though he also knew none of it had yet happened. Strange, he thought, he had never seen the future before. Though it did not frighten him. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>"I want to give you a choice," Yennefer said, awakening him from his vision. "You should have the opportunity to make a different decision." </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Geralt looked down at her and saw there were tears in the corners of her eyes, sparkling like precious diamonds she was about to discard. Instinctively he pulled her to him, holding her firmly with one hand against the small of her back. He held his other hand to her face, his rough palm against her soft cheek, his fingertips just brushing against a few stray locks of her long black hair. It felt entirely natural to hold her in his arms - as if she had always belonged there, and had returned there many times - though he had never held her before. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>"No," he said, firmly, feeling the words with utter certainty. "I can't make a different decision. There is no other decision to make."</p>
  <p>Yennefer looked away, hiding her face against his palm. He felt her wet tears falling on his fingers. "That's not true," she said. "You don't have to make the wish. You can choose to walk away. To save yourself - perhaps save us both. Just look, look at what happens to us. All the pain we will cause. I want you to know what will happen before you choose."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He could see it all now, somehow: their entire lives stretching out in front of him, like a river of time, spiraling into the night sky. He saw the wish, saw her dark curls across a red velvet pillow, he saw his hands on her arms, felt her lips against his neck; he saw the two of them come together and ricochet apart - the force that pulled them together equally pushing them away from each other; he saw them make love a hundred, no, a thousand times: at the peak of the tallest of the Kestrel Mountains, in a valley of wild flowers in Adern, in the heart of a pine forest, by a crackling fire, on a balcony overlooking a busy city, and - by magic - far beneath the surface of a deep blue lake; he saw anger in her dark purple eyes; he saw her hurl insults and jars of preserves at him; he felt his muscles tense with rage; he felt the burning bile of fear and distrust in his stomach; he felt a shard of ice; he saw a kestrel soaring across the night sky; he smelt fire; saw the glint of steel; the deep red of spilled blood; he saw himself alone on the Path, long and endless, cold at night, with a lone star above to guide him; he saw Ciri, his daughter, wrapped in her arms as she protected them both from darkness closing around them; he felt the warmth of her skin against his; he felt her hand, holding his, slip from his grasp; he saw her eyes, deep and endless and intoxicating, staring back at his with a kind of love he didn't believe he could ever deserve, and he couldn't look away. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>He saw all of this and held her close. "I can't make a different decision," he said.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"You can," she insisted.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Fine then, I won't." he said. "How could you think that in showing me all this, I would change my mind? What, to avoid the pain? That would mean sacrificing all the rest along with it. Without sorrow, there is no joy. You are my sorrow, you are my joy. My pleasure and my pain. I will have it all." </p>
</div><div>
  <p>She laughed, wiping the tears away from her eyes with her slender fingers. "You really are a fool."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Yen, how are you doing this?" he asked. He knew her power was great, but whatever this magic was, it was beyond even her capabilities. "Is this really you?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Hush now," she whispered. "It doesn't matter, does it? Soon you will wake, and not remember any of this. But you will make the same decision - I gave you the choice, but if you're sure that's what you want, you will make it again."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Then let me wake," he said. He held both of her hands in his and gently kissed her fingertips. "So I can see you again, now that I know what will become of us."</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He felt his eyes closing, his body becoming limp, the world around him swirling away like smoke, and her fingers slipping from his grasp. His thoughts faded too, his memories, his premonitions, until all that that remained was... her; the feeling of her; the touch of her skin; the sparkle of her eyes; her soft lips; and that scent. That, he remembered, he felt, with the core of his being, and after that, there was nothing to decide. </p>
</div>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading. Comments are love.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>